Thumbelina - the character of the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

You know that every fairy tale teaches something. What can the fairy tale "Thumbelina" by Hans Christian Andersen teach?

Imagine a lot! A child, getting to know a little, very small girl, learns to live in this huge and sometimes scary world. Let's go on a journey through a magical land created by the fantasy of a brilliant storyteller and learn life lessons from it.

One woman, a witch and Thumbelina

One woman dreamed of having a child and went to the witch. Why didn’t she give birth to a child herself, didn’t she adopt an orphan? After all, this is usually done by those who dream of children. However, there is a category of people who cannot cope with their problems on their own. They resort to the services of sorcerers, magicians, witches, psychics. The point here is that such a person has desires, but no abilities, creative imagination, vital energy. This poor woman can't even think of a proper name for the girl, she can't keep the baby safe by carelessly leaving a nutshell with a sleeping girl by the open window. It is only natural that she lost her happiness.

Sorceress - imagea person, on the contrary, possessing the ability to be creative. It is in her power to create something fantastic, spiritualized and animated out of something ordinary, for example, from a barley grain. But still, the sorceress is a simple person, not an almighty God, so the wonderful creature turned out to be small, very small.

Thumbelina, born of the power of creative imagination, has beauty and talent. She is able to give all living beings joy and happiness. But it is so small that it cannot exist independently in the material world. Her charm extends only to the spiritual component of reality. This is her salvation and at the same time a test - she is always needed by someone and at the same time dependent on someone. Thumbelina is a symbolic character, she represents something beautiful, but unattainable in real life, because no one has managed to possess her in this world. Only in a distant land did this happen to the king of the elves, a creature as fantastic as Thumbelina herself.

Toad, her son and Thumbelina

Toad, having stolen Thumbelina, was somewhat more prudent than the former mistress, she placed the treasure on a piece of paper, away from the shore, to prevent the potential daughter-in-law from escaping. And yet, having stereotyped thinking, she could not imagine that there were other forces that could interfere with her plans: swimming fish for example. Even the thought that someone is ready to help the unfortunate creature does not occur to the toad. In addition, she does not think that her son as a husband can make anyone unhappy. And the worst thing is the toadfussing about arranging a family nest in a swampy swamp, in which Thumbelina cannot survive. But the old toad is incapable of understanding all this. What can be learned here? At least the fact that any act is complicated by a multitude of circumstances, some can be foreseen and prevented, while others, due to human limitations, are impossible. There are people who do not have an adequate idea of the world, of themselves and of those around them. Everything they do ends in failure sooner or later.

The son of a toad is an absolutely spineless creature. They found him a bride - he would marry, if they had not found him, he would not have married. This is an image of a person who does not have any personal beginning at all. It is unlikely that he was very upset after the loss of his bride. He doesn't need a wife at all. Are there many such families that appeared due to the active efforts of third parties? Are they happy? Or maybe somewhere in the swamp mud of a cozy family nest, arranged by a "caring" mother-in-law, a "little inch" dies, which no one helped.

Our heroine was on a leaf of a water lily in the middle of the river and was terribly frightened. How can a person behave in such a situation? She could throw a scandal to the toad and her son, she could rush about in hysterics on the sheet and loudly call for help, dispersing shy fish with her cries, she could throw herself into the river in a fit of despair and drown. Usually this is how people behave when they find themselves in a hopeless situation. But Thumbelina behaves differently: completely resigned to her fate, she bitterly and quietly mourns her ruined life. fish,seeing this, they took pity on her and gnawed through the stalk holding Thumbelina's flower. And the leaf carried the beautiful captive away from the ugly toads. They say that pity humiliates a person, as we see, it does not humiliate, but saves. It is the meek who are usually lucky - they are willingly helped.

And they also help the beautiful. So it was with the white moth, fascinated by the beauty of Thumbelina. He allowed her to tie herself with a belt to a piece of paper, for which he paid with his life. What can be said here? Probably about not being so attached to something that it would be impossible to break free.

Beetle and Thumbelina

The cockchafer was responsible for the death of the moth. But he didn’t even think in the corner of his mind that someone had died through his fault, and grief was not enough for him.

The cockchafer was not devoid of aesthetic taste, and he really liked the little beauty. But then other May beetles came and expressed their opinion: “She only has two legs!”, “She doesn’t even have tentacles!” And the beetle refused Thumbelina. Why did this happen?

Firstly, the Maybug is an egoist who considers himself worthy of all the best, he takes everything he likes from life, while depending on someone else's opinion. This is a representative of a fashionable crowd, for whom the worst thing is to be different from “their own”, to be not like everyone else. The value of anything for such people is measured not by their own ideas, but by how others evaluate it. The fairy tale "Thumbelina" gives us an understanding of the terrible evil that lies in the rejection of love for the sake of public opinion.

Second, the beetle -this is not the option that is suitable for Thumbelina's husbands. He has stereotypical thinking and this prevents him from being independent even in being happy. Even a hundred thousand Maybugs could not give him even a fraction of the spiritual joy that one Thumbelina could give. He prefers his external position among worthless and narrow-minded relatives to an internal state of happiness and love.

Thumbelina, abandoned by the beetle, has developed a sense of her own inferiority. How often it happens in life, when a beautiful, sweet, very good person considers himself flawed only because he is rejected by insignificant beings, who, for some reason they know, are confident in their superiority. And Thumbelina does not even allow the thought that they are biased in relation to her. This character admires his inability to think badly about others. She has only herself to blame.

Mouse, Mole and Thumbelina

Rejected by the bug, Thumbelina lived alone all summer and autumn. But now winter has come, and the poor girl is forced to seek shelter.

She was taken in by a field mouse. This kind creature loves Thumbelina, takes care of her and wishes her only happiness. Therefore, she is busy to marry Thumbelina to a mole. To her, this marriage seems to be the height of a prosperous life, since the mole is rich and has a luxurious fur coat. For a mouse, these arguments are enough to consider a mole an enviable groom. In this case, she takes upon herself the right to decide someone else's fate, guided only by good intentions, and does it completely disinterestedly. On the example of a mouseit is shown how some people can make other people unhappy, wishing only the best for them, showing sincere concern for a loved one. Truly “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Mole is the personification of a rich man. His character is given in a few words: "important, sedate and taciturn." He considers himself the height of every girl's dream, while he does not like the sun, flowers and birds - everything that Thumbelina loves - a character opposed to a mole in its very essence. This marriage is doomed from the start.

Thumbelina in this situation is true to herself: she unquestioningly obeys her foster mother, considering her her benefactor. Only at the last moment he decides to escape, because he cannot imagine his life without sunlight.

Swallow, King of the Elves and Thumbelina

Getting rid of the miserable existence in the mole dungeon became possible thanks to the swallow, which was warmed and saved from starvation by Thumbelina. The character in the form of a swallow is a link between the heroine of the fairy tale and another world, opposed to ordinary and boring reality. The mole and the mouse, who devote their lives to the accumulation of material we alth, unanimously accuse the bird of a useless existence. For them, the singing of birds is a completely empty occupation. And for Thumbelina - a great joy. She takes care of the bird as a token of gratitude for the moments of pleasure that were once delivered. And the swallow saved Thumbelina, knowing full well that escape is salvation, and life with a mole is death.

The world into which the swallow and her little passenger traveled is a holidaywarmth, light and beauty. There Thumbelina meets her fate - the king of the elves. Finally, she feels at home with her family. Born from a flower, she becomes the queen of flowers. She achieved her happiness by deserving it by overcoming all obstacles without hurting anyone.

The Elf King is Thumbelina's first fiancé, who asks her for consent to marriage. It occurred to him alone to ask her opinion.

And when the elves surrounded Thumbelina and saw the absence of wings, they simply gave them to her without further ado. This is how all problems should be solved in an ideal society, which elves embody, it is customary for them to respect each other, to take care of the personality of another creature. This example is the main life lesson that can be learned from the fairy tale "Thumbelina".

Thumbelina, the character has not been named until this moment, it is impossible to consider this definition by growth as a name, gets its real name - Maya. Thus, a new symbol is born - the embodiment of spring, warmth and light.